“Where are you calling from?” demanded the man.
Sonjae hung up the phone.
“What’s up?” asked Ferguson.
Sonjae explained what had happened.
Ferguson glanced at the card where he had written the phone number. “Try changing the last two digits. See if we can get another extension and have them transfer us.”
Sonjae got a message that he had dialed a nonworking number. Then he tried an old Bureau trick, dialing in and asking for Mr. Kim, essentially asking for Mr. Smith.
“One minute,” said the operator.
Sonjae found himself talking to a jocular young man who laughed when he heard that there had been a mistake and that Sonjae really wanted Miss Bae Eun.
“Everyone wants Eun,” said the man. “She’s very pretty.”
“I think so, too,” said Sonjae.
“Are you her boyfriend?”
“A relative,” he said quickly. “But how do I get her?”
“Wait, I’ll connect you.”
“What is the extension in case I lose you?”
The man laughed as if this were the funniest joke he’d heard all week. “I won’t lose you. But it is… Let me see… secretary section two, four-four-seven-eight. Wait. I will forward the call.”
A second later, Sonjae found himself talking to the same gruff man he’d been speaking to earlier.
“You had better turn yourself in and cooperate,” he told Sonjae.
Sonjae glanced up at Ferguson. “Same guy,” he said, holding his hand over the phone. “Wants me to turn myself in.”
“Why?” prompted Ferguson.
Sonjae put the phone back to his ear. “Turn myself in, why?”
“Where are you?” said the man, softening his tone ever so slightly.
“I’m in Daejeon,” Sonjae lied. “What sort of trouble is she in?”
“You’re lying to me!” The man exploded. Obviously he had a caller-ID device or some other way of seeing the phone number Sonjae was calling from.
Caught in a stupid lie. He should have said Seoul from the start.
“What trouble is Eun in?” said Sonjae. “I am her… a cousin.”
“Where are you?”
Sonjae hung up.
“Call the first guy back and tell him that you missed your cousin,” said Ferguson. “See if you can get the extension of someone who knows her.”
“Not Kang Hwan?”
“If you ask for the scientist, they’ll automatically be suspicious. It’s more natural to be looking for her.”
Sonjae nodded. This sort of thing used to be second nature to him. Was it the jet lag, his language difficulties, or was he just getting old?
“It’s me again,” he told Mr. Kim a few minutes later. He claimed that there had been no answer at Bae Eun’s extension. This was a real problem, Sonjae said, because his cousin was supposed to pick him up at the airport; he was just in from America.
“America. Oh, you live in L.A.?”
“No.”
“New York?”
“Yes, New York,” said Sonjae.
Kim gave him some instructions on how to deal with taxi drivers and how to get a train to Daejeon, then put him through to a woman whose office was next to Bae Eun’s so Sonjae could leave a message.
“I’m looking for Bae Eun,” said Sonjae, his Korean growing smoother as his cover story became more polished. “I’m her cousin from America and—”
The woman who’d answered the phone burst into tears.
Sonjae asked her what was wrong. The woman told him she couldn’t talk.
“But my cousin—”
“They’re watching,” said the woman, and then she hung up.
Ferguson had already guessed what had happened: The security people had realized that her card had been used to gain access to the building. The card readers hadn’t seemed that sophisticated, but it wouldn’t take all that much to simply record reads.
He didn’t explain to Sonjae. Instead, he had him make one more call to Science Industries.
“Ask for Mr. Park’s office. See what happens. If you get a secretary, ask when he’s usually there. Then let’s get out of here. They probably have someone on their way here right now.”
6
Corrine’s secretary, Teri Gatins, segregated her phone messages into three main piles: important, really important, and obscenely important. Messages in those categories were placed on the top of her computer monitor, an old-style CRT.
Messages in two other categories were placed on the ledge between the monitor and the keyboard: personal, and no idea.
Josh Franklin fell into the latter category, primarily because he wouldn’t tell Teri what he was calling about, a fact the secretary noted on the pink slip with several exclamation marks.
Remembering their conversation about Korea, Corrine pushed the message to the head of the line and called Franklin back.
“This is Josh.”
“This is Corrine Alston, Mr. Franklin. What can I do for you?”
“For starters, call me Josh,” he said. “Mr. Franklin’s my dad. I was wondering…”
He paused. Corrine stopped sorting through the messages, waiting for Franklin to continue.
“Maybe we could have dinner,” he said finally.
“Dinner?”
“Just, uh… I wanted to hear your thoughts on Korea. The treaty — legally enforcing it, which I thought might be a problem. Just informal thoughts.”
“I really don’t have any thoughts,” said Corrine
“Oh,” he said.
He sounded so dejected Corrine felt sorry for him. Then she remembered him sitting near her in the president’s limo: handsome, earnest, a nice smell.
And nearly fifteen years her senior.
But that wasn’t a big difference by Washington standards. Not in the right context.
“I’m not doing anything for dinner tonight,” she told him. “If that’s really what you’re asking.”
“Yeah. That’d be great.” He sounded like a teenager, surprised and happy.
“Let’s pick a place to meet.”
Franklin suggested a Tex-Mex place not far from the Pentagon. He was waiting when Corrine got there, sipping a Beefeater martini. Corrine ordered a glass of the house chardonnay.
“You’re really going to want a beer with dinner,” said Franklin. His tie was still knotted at the collar of his gray suit. “Goes better with the food.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Corrine.
